


Intoxicating Music

by Elyra_the_Grey



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-01
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2017-12-25 08:31:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/950952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elyra_the_Grey/pseuds/Elyra_the_Grey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin starts his afternoon off whistling a merry tune to a bunch of birds. When his magic puts an edge to the music, things get a bit carried away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a light piece I scratched out to put off writing an essay for class. Updates will be sporadic at best, and mostly based on whether or not I feel like continuing it at the time. Well, I enjoyed writing it, and I hope someone enjoys reading this.  
> Oh, and I've also posted this under my fanfiction account: mockingbird13, so if you see it over there, it's not plagiarized or anything.

Merlin plunked himself down in the grassy clearing, heaving a sigh of relief at the opportunity to relax without worrying about chores, murderous sorcerers, and demanding royalty.

Nearby, his horse, a sturdy piebald mare named Luca, cropped grass contentedly, almost as happy as Merlin to be away from the hustle and bustle of the castle.

Merlin had just been given his first afternoon off in weeks. The young warlock still hadn't figured out why Arthur had told him to take the rest of the day off, but he suspected it had something to do with Gaius. The physician had been frowning at him all week, nagging him to sleep and eat and be careful, all of which he'd been too busy to worry about.

Merlin lay back in the grass, resting his weight on his elbows and letting his lanky legs stretch out before him. He closed his eyes and let the sunlight wash over his tired body as he recalled the events of the past few days.

No less than three vengeful sorcerers and an angry chimera had attempted to kill Arthur in the past week. Two of the sorcerers had been killed-one while Arthur was unconscious nearby, and the other without Arthur even becoming aware that a sorcerer was in the kingdom. The third he had managed to talk out of assassinating the crown prince, revealing his identity as Emrys and assuring him that the prince would revoke the ban on sorcery when he became king.

Unfortunately, the chimera hadn't been as easy to dissuade. Now, three broken ribs and a row of healing claw marks later, Merlin was ready for a break. He'd managed to speed his healing with his magic, but he was still exhausted, and all this running about fetching laundry and mucking out the stables was not allowing him the time necessary to heal.

Keeping his eyes closed, Merlin hummed softly under his breath, a soft, "Hmmmhm, hmm, hmmm, hm, hm, hmmm," sparking an answering chorus from the birds resting in a nearby hazel tree; a sweet, "Tsuuutsu, tsuu, tsuuu, tsu, tsu, tsuuu."

Merlin smiled, and switched to whistling a different tune, a series of stuttering 'wiffs' interspersed with long drown out 'woos.' The cheerful birds mimicked him perfectly, and shot back another set of notes. Merlin matched their song beat for beat, and the birds twittered happily in their hazel tree.

Starting out slow, Merlin slowly built up a rhythmic set of lazy spiraling notes, increasing the tempo until he was whistling at a fairly constant pace. The birds joined in, singing in harmony, a few adding in a backdrop of alternating high and low notes.

Unconsciously, Merlin's magic amplified the song, until it permeated the forest with its oscillating rise and fall, filling the warm air with 'wiffs' and 'whirs' and 'woos' and 'tsus,' and all manner of similar sounds. The forest sang with the unique collaboration of birds and warlock, and the trees began to sway in time, leaves swishing in the sunlight, shadows and sunspots dancing across the carpet of sun-kissed grass and layered leaves.

Squirrels quit their chatter and whirled through the swaying treetops, pirouetting nimbly across branches and twirling about in acrobatic arcs, grey and red blurs amongst the emerald leaves and sable branches, drawn slowly to the clearing to dance energetically above the whistling warlock.

Deer stopped grazing, and stood still and silent, soaking in the harmonious melody. They drifted cautiously into the clearing, appearing beside Merlin's mare, Luca. Swaying as the music seeped into their graceful bones, they began to buck and dance, rearing onto fore and hind legs, dodging graceful kicks and tossing slim necks as they danced together to the infectious tempo, sure of foot and light in heart and body. Some of the bucks even added their own bass bellows to the backdrop. Luca felt some remembrance of her younger years stirring in her blood, and joined the jubilant deer as they circled the warlock.

Rabbits emerged shyly from the long grass and their carefully hidden burrows, twitching their long velvety ears in sync with the invigorating music. Young rabbits crept into the clearing, emboldened, and began to throw themselves into the air, spinning about in a whir of creamy brown fur and landing with soft thuds in the grass as they dove skillfully between the lithe limbs of the deer and the heavy hooves of the mare.

Soon the whole forest was singing and dancing, insects chirping and strumming, butterflies fluttering in time with dragonfly and faerie partners. Birds filled the clearing, singing and wheeling in and out of pace like airborne jewels. The grass was swaying hypnotically with the serpents and weasels at the edge of the clamor, the wolves rising from their dens to bark and howl and cavort with the deer, lithe gray shapes bounding to and fro amidst the bucking brown deer and piebald mare. Foxes yipped and twirled playfully with the rabbits, light-footed lengths of spirited flame springing and swirling in dizzying patterns. Even the grumpy badgers came out to sway a bit and soak in the merriment.

In the middle of this joyous chaos, friend and foe, predator and prey, all were woven together by the intoxicating harmony. And at the heart of it all lay Merlin, eyes still closed, magic painting vivid notes and flashes of the wild dance on the insides of his eyelids until the young Warlock felt compelled to open them.

At the impossible sight of all the woodland creatures dancing in harmony, Merlin's eyes widened, a smile blooming across his pale features. The music continued without his whistling, fueled now by magic, the notes almost visible against the darkening sky. With a wondrous laugh, Merlin rose, and joined in the festivities, dancing with the wild wolves and skittish deer until his lungs felt near to bursting, whirling about with the foxes and the rabbits until his head spun, and gradually wearing himself out in the general festivities.

Slowly, the tune began to wind down, notes pealing away and growing slower and slower, the dancers slowing with it. Then the final note rang out, clear and piercing. The dancers stilled, and dropped inelegantly in exhausted heaps, birds spiraling like fallen leaves, wolves draped over deer, rabbits cuddled up against foxes, squirrels snuggling with weasels, insects perched on various noses, faeries sprawled across serpents. Merlin flopped down as well, drifting into exhausted slumber, and the forest slept with him, tree branches drooping, grass slumping over, and the still air resonating with the snores and susurrations of the slumbering creatures in the clearing.

When Merlin awoke the next morning, the first thing he saw was a fox, the first thing he felt was the fox's tongue licking his face, and the third thing he noticed was the fact that he was surrounded by, and covered in, animals. Then the fox gave him a final lick and settled down against his head.

Merlin lay there and just concentrated on breathing for a while. Then he carefully craned his neck, without moving the rest of his body, and looked down at the rest of his previously sleeping form. The warm weight on his chest was a doe resting her head, the heavy warmth at his legs was a sleeping wolf, the squirming at his stomach was three squirrels and a rabbit, another fox was curled against one side, a weasel at the other, a serpent lay coiled atop his knee, and several birds were scattered about his person. And a naked faerie was swaying drunkenly atop his boot, giggling.

Merlin closed his eyes, and tried to remember how this had happened. He remembered singing with some birds, some trippy images, dancing, and exhaustion. Speaking of which, how long had he slept? He cracked open his eyes again, and saw that it was a new day. He groaned. Great, He'd slept through the night. Arthur was going to kill him. And Gaius would probably hold him still for it; especially after his many warnings about making it back at a decent time.

Merlin tilted his head to the side, and spotted Luca amidst a pile of wolves. He blinked, and returned to examining his chances of escaping the combined wrath of Gaius and Arthur. Before he'd gotten very far, a wave of drowsiness washed over him, and he yawned, eyelids sliding shut. Maybe just a quick nap would give him some more energy to think properly.


	2. Back in Camelot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AN: I know this is a bit of a short chapter, but I felt it was necessary to have a bit of Arthur's perspective before we get back to Merlin. So here you go, next chapter will hopefully be up soon. Sorry for the long wait, I just got a bit lost on the path of life ;)
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin, and if I did, it would have definitely had a happier ending.

Back in Camelot, Arthur was most certainly displeased. He'd woken to find his breakfast absent, his manservant nowhere to be found, and a heap of unpolished armor scattered across the floor.

Irritated, and in no mood to hunt down an incompetent servant, he'd scoured the castle, and the nearby taverns, but Merlin was nowhere to be found. He'd tried Gaius first, but the physician had declared that he hadn't seen Merlin since yesterday afternoon, when he'd been given the day off. And his bed hadn't even been slept in the night before.

Now, not finding his irresponsible manservant passed out in a tavern or fooling around in the castle, Arthur began to feel the pricking of genuine worry twisting at his chest. Normally, he'd dismiss Merlin's absence as another of his attempts at shirking his duties. Lately, however, he'd noticed that Merlin was vanishing without a plausible explanation with alarming frequency.

And just the other day he'd caught the lanky servant clutching at his ribs after stumbling into his bedpost with a load of laundry. Arthur recognized pain when he saw it, and Merlin's white face and stiff movements spoke of something a bit more serious than a minor bruise.

Shortly thereafter he'd impulsively given Merlin the afternoon off, hoping he'd take the time to grab a proper meal and perhaps see to whatever was causing him pain. He wasn't as worried as he could have been, since he figured Gaius would see to whatever was bothering him. He was, after all, the court physician.

And yes, he had given Merlin the afternoon off yesterday, but he'd also made it clear that he expected his breakfast some time the next morning–preferably on time.

Grasping at straws, Arthur set off to check the stables, half-hoping to find Merlin passed out in a pile of hay.

Upon arrival, he began checking the stalls. Finding no sign of Merlin, he almost left before noticing something–or rather, a lack of something. Luca, Merlin's steady old mare, wasn't in any of the stalls.

Almost smacking himself for not checking the stables sooner, Arthur grabbed the stable boy–Kevin, and demanded to know if he'd seen Merlin leave the stable sometime yesterday afternoon.

The frightened stable boy babbled that he had indeed seen Merlin leave with Luca, pointing in the direction he'd taken, and babbling rather incoherently in between.

Arthur felt a bit bad for scaring the boy, but his worry for Merlin overruled his patience for dealing politely with stable hands.

Releasing the shaken stable boy, Arthur strode purposefully towards the practice field, where he was supposed to be training the knights. Putting a bemused Sir Leon in charge of practice, he ended up leaving with a concerned Gwaine, Lancelot, Elyan, and Percival, after his "impromptu hunting trip" excuse had fallen through and he was tricked into admitting that he was going out to look for a missing Merlin.

Unable to dissuade them from following him, and knowing that they'd be more than a little useful if Merlin was in any real trouble, the five knights set off towards the forest, quickly picking up Merlin's trail and hoping that nothing terrible had happened to the good-natured manservant.


	3. Into the Woods

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hi there, so it’s been…oh dear, three years. Yes, three whole years since my last update. Well…*cough* Ah, apologies for that. Life kind of swept me away. Anyway, better late than never, right? So, here’s chapter three. Please enjoy, and I promise not to make you wait so long for the next chapter!

They’d only guided their horses a small ways into the woods when they began to feel unaccountably unsettled, as if something important was just slightly out of place. 

For a while they continued forward regardless, the urgency of locating Merlin more pressing in light of this unsettled feeling in the woods. 

It was Elyan who eventually hit on it: the still silence. 

Usually, the forest was teeming with animal noises, the chatter of squirrels and birds, the rustle of long grass where the weasels and rabbits hid. Even the buzz of the insects was gone from the air. Only the gentle rustling of the wind through the leaves and the thumping of their horses hooves assured them that they hadn’t stepped into some frozen illusion. 

“It must be some form of sorcery,” Arthur declared, eyeing the surrounding undergrowth with suspicion, hand moving back to rest on the hilt of his sword.

Lancelot shifted uneasily in his saddle, and Arthur couldn’t blame him for seeming alarmed. Whatever sorcery this was, it had left the forest as empty as the currently unoccupied dungeons–and even in the dungeons, there were at least rats!

“What would a sorcerer want with all the wildlife?” Elyan asked. “I doubt squirrels would make a very effective army.”

“I dunno, mate,” Gwaine cut in. “If you’ve ever got naked, slathered in honey, rolled in birdseed, and dropped in the woods, you might change your mind about the little buggers.”

“That’s…a very specific example, Gwaine,” Lancelot said, pulling his horse a step or so away from the grinning knight.

“Aye,” Gwaine replied easily. “Never cheat a resourceful woman in a game of cards. Lucky there was a swift stream nearby, else I might not be here today.” 

The rest of the search party wisely chose not to encourage further details. For sanity’s sake, if nothing else.

“Squirrels aren’t the only things in these woods,” Arthur pointed out. “Farther north of here, there’s a fairly large wolf pack. Wild boar are nothing to take lightly, either. Venomous snakes would make excellent assassins, and even mice could spoil grain or chew through tack and gear.” 

Sobering, the company considered all the chaos an army of woodland creatures could potentially cause. 

“Do you think this sorcerer has Merlin?” Percival asked gravely, speaking up for the first time since they set out. 

“We can’t know for certain,” Arthur said. “But if he was in these woods when this sorcerer cast their spell…” 

The others mirrored his grim expression, spurring their horses forward, now even more determined to find their missing friend. 

Only Lancelot seemed to harbor some serious doubts, anxiously hoping that, whatever trouble his magically endowed friend had gotten mixed up in, they weren’t about to make things even more difficult for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PS. I know a lot of you were hoping that the knights + Arthur would actually run across Merlin in this chapter, but I needed to set up their expectations before I got that far. Now I just need to figure out if I’m going to transition to Merlin’s POV for the meet-up, or whether I should just stick with the knights…


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I actually updated this on ffn first, and forgot about doing the same on ao3, so you get two chapters all in the same day! Thanks to everyone still hanging on after all this time, your responses and encouragement really motivates me to pick this up and continue! Haha, that and guilt for leaving you all hanging for three years prior to this! Oh, and I decided to go with the knight’s POV. I’ll give you Merlin in the next chapter. Anyway, here’s Chapter 4. Enjoy!

As Arthur and his knights traveled deeper into the forest, they began to notice that the tracks of the missing woodland creatures all seemed to lead in the same general direction. Reasoning that this fit with their potential sorcerer drawing an army of animals to one place, they decided to follow the tracks cautiously until they came upon the sorcerer’s camp, which would hopefully include a captive, but unharmed Merlin. 

As they drew closer to the source, the animal signs began to grow closer together and overlap, and a few sleepy squirrels and lightly chirping birds made themselves known. 

Dismounting from their horses lest the sorcerer took control of them, or directed some other woodland creatures to spook them, the search party continued on foot, moving forward as quietly as if on a royal hunt. 

Arthur took the lead, insides twisting as he imagined what terrible fate could have befallen his manservant at the hands of a sorcerer who could control wild animals. He hated to admit that any servant could make him feel so torn up, but he was also long past the point where he could easily convince himself that Merlin was no more than a servant to him. 

Behind him and slightly fanned out to each side, the rest of the knights followed with similar determination set in their faces. No matter what powers this mysterious sorcerer wielded, they would overcome any trial to rescue their clumsy, golden-hearted friend. 

Soon they started to come across sleeping creatures clustered in clumps across the forest floor. Clearly enchanted, as it would otherwise prove impossible to find rabbits and foxes tangled peacefully together with snakes, weasels curled around mice, a wild boar snorting in its sleep beside a badger that Arthur could swear was actually snoring.

The scattered forms grew thicker and more difficult to step around as they drew quietly closer to a clearing ahead that seemed to be the center of this enchanted mass of woodland creatures. 

There was a tense moment when one of the wild boar raised its head to peer blearily in their direction. However, they all froze in place, knowing that a boar has naturally terrible eyesight, and the sleepy creature quickly fell back asleep. 

Continuing forward, Elyan suddenly stopped and staring at something, motioning the others to look in the direction he was pointing a finger. Following the focus of the knight’s attention, they realized that he was pointing at the form of an actual faerie, draped across the snout of a slumbering wolf. 

Shocked at the sight of this rare magical creature, it took them a moment to realize that the wolf, and several of its companions, were curled up next to a very familiar mare.

Luca, Elyan mouthed. The others quickly caught the unspoken implication. If Luca was here, her master was likely nearby. 

Stepping closer, they kept a wary watch on the silent woods around them. This close to the center of whatever enchantment this was, they expected a sorcerer to appear at any moment, likely shouting some slander about the wicked ways of the Pendragon family and firing spells left and right.

It was Gwaine who finally spotted Merlin, muffling a startled exclamation before gesturing wildly at a particularly thick clump of gently snuffling and snoring animals near the center of the clearing. 

Drawing closer together, the search party stared in a mixture of relief, concern, and disbelief at the sight before them. 

Arthur’s eyes automatically scanned what was visible of his manservant’s slumbering form, relief flooding through his body and loosening the knots in his stomach as he noted that Merlin appeared physically unharmed. In fact, if not for the fact that he was clearly the victim of a sleeping enchantment, he’d almost call the scene in front of him….adorable. Of course, Arthur was the Crown Prince of Camelot, which meant that his vocabulary contained no such word. Even so, he struggled to find another…

Deeply asleep, Merlin’s unruly black hair was particularly mussed and sticking up at odd angles. His face was soft in sleep, expression closer to the childlike innocence he’d worn more often in his earliest years in Camelot. It struck Arthur as a loss to have seen that expression so often replaced with weariness in recent times. 

His manservant’s gangly limbs were sprawled out carelessly, his legs pinned down by a rather large grey wolf, thankfully also deep asleep, one leg kicking as Arthur had seen the odd hunting dog react in the midst of a good dream. There was a fox under one of Merlin’s arms, tucked against his side, another curled around his head like one of the castle cats. The elegant head of a sleeping doe lay across Merlin’s thin chest, her ears twitching slightly in sleep. Snugged between her forelimbs and the side of Merlin not occupied by a fox, the snaky body of a weasel lay squished up against the sleeping manservant. A twitching mass of fur at Merlin’s stomach appeared to be a mix of squirrels and at least one rabbit. A serpent lay coiled atop his knee, and a faerie–this one naked, was sprawled awkwardly across Merlin’s boot. 

In stunned silence broken only by the snoring and twitching of animals in deep sleep, Arthur and his knights could only stare in disbelief at this most unexpected development. When they set out on foot to rescue Merlin from a sorcerer, this was not how they pictured to find him!  
Gwaine looked close to melting into the forest floor, especially when one of the rabbits on Merlin’s stomach nestled a little closer to the sleeping manservant with a twitch of soft ears. He looked like he wanted nothing more than to join the dog-pile, or else somehow capture this image to tease Merlin about for the rest of his life–and to secretly peek at whenever he needed a good dose of heart-melting cuteness to boost his mood. There was even a possibility that some of his usual “Princess” jokes might shift from Arthur to Merlin, with a healthy addition of “Sleeping Beauty” references. Looking thoughtful, he considered suggesting that Arthur try kissing Merlin to wake him from his clearly enchanted sleep. If the prince went through with it, Gwaine have enough blackmail material to last three lifetimes.

Arthur was thankfully to absorbed with trying to crush his own traitorous thoughts about how adorable–that cursed word–Merlin was…So he missed Gwaine’s unsettlingly wicked grin. 

Percival looked like he was itching to step forward and pet one of the sleeping critters. He loved animals, great and small, and seeing so many woodland creatures so close and deeply asleep made him want to test his luck and see how soft and warm their fur was. He couldn’t help but feel a little jealous of Merlin’s position, even if it was the result of an enchantment. Although Percival was more well-traveled than many of his companions, and, taking in the presence of the faeries, more inclined to feel that this was the the harmless aftermath of some faerie Revel that happened to draw in the local wildlife. And Merlin. 

Elyan was simply wondering why the hell all these magical mishaps seemed to take place in one of the kingdoms most renowned for their vigilant persecution of magic. You’d think all these sorcerers would have just settled down somewhere else by now…

Out of them all, only Lancelot looked more resigned than shocked. If any of the knights had been looking his way, they would have been bewildered to see him cast a world-weary “How am I going to get him out of this one?” look to the patches of sky visible between the trees. 

While Lancelot was silently bemoaning Merlin’s tendency to draw attention to himself and his very illegal magical abilities, Arthur was coming out of his shock and attempting to assess the situation.

Clearly, Merlin had been caught in whatever enchantment had placed all these woodland creatures into a deep sleep. He was tempted to crack some joke about Merlin having the same basic intelligence as a squirrel, but the presence of faeries under the same enchantment meant that this was more powerful than he expected. He was also grimly aware that he, his knights, and the blissfully sleeping Merlin were all at the center of an uncomfortably large number of wild animals. If they did anything to rouse all of these creatures at once, he had no doubt that things would quickly become very ugly. 

Most of other knights seemed to have also collected themselves and come to similar conclusions, Elyan shifting glance around at the long tusks of the slumbering boar, the twitching of the wolves, the patterns on the scales of several serpents marking them as venomous. 

Arthur looked more closely at the serpent coiled atop Merlin’s knee, and his throat tightened as he realized that this creature was also of the venomous variety. 

The serpent and the wolf across Merlin’s legs were the most troubling. 

There was also a chance that the doe, if she woke and panicked, might trample Merlin’s unguarded form. Those slender hooves were deceptively sharp, and he could suffer broken ribs or worse. 

The faerie at his boot was also worrying. Arthur had little experience with them, but they were magical creatures, and no doubt capable of harming a defenseless manservant. 

Gwaine caught Arthur’s attention by waving his arms, and then began to make some odd hand motions. At first it looked like he’d made little mouths with his hands, and then started mashing them together, but that didn’t make any sense. Gwaine then pointed at his own lips, at Arthur, and then at the still-sleeping Merlin. 

From his rather confusing hand gestures, Arthur decided that Gwaine was suggesting that they silently attempt to throw something at Merlin’s face, to see if they could wake up the manservant without also waking any of the creatures sprawled across him. 

Arthur frowned, shaking his head sharply to veto the suggestion. It would be just like Merlin to wake up shouting and flailing and thereby incite anything nearby to sink teeth into him just to make him stop. 

Arthur was about to motion the knights into strategic positions around Merlin to simultaneously lash out and kill the sleeping creatures all at once, when, as was usual, Merlin destroyed his excellent plan by twitching, moaning slightly, and waking with a sleepy yawn before Arthur could make a move.

Everyone stood frozen as Merlin shifted a little before hooded blue eyes opened to drowsily locked onto Arthur. For a moment, he simply blinked, but then his mind seemed to process the fact that his eyes were, in fact, registering the presence of Arthur, his prince, standing right in front of him. 

Eyes widening with sudden alarm, now not at all asleep, Merlin took on the expression of a startled deer. 

“Arthur!” he shouted, just as loud as Arthur had dreaded. A flailing arm struck the sleeping doe, the fox on his chest squirmed to life, the wolf at his legs let out a short grunt, and the entire clearing exploded into chaos…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this didn’t take me three years to put out, so congrats to me! More thanks to you guys for giving me the encouragement to get this out so soon! Thanks to everyone who has given kudos to me, commented, bookmarked, and subscribed to my story! You guys are the reason I keep writing!


End file.
